


The Last Exorcist in California

by tinymarvels (Captain_of_the_sass)



Category: Original Work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-29
Updated: 2019-10-30
Packaged: 2021-01-07 23:07:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21225737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Captain_of_the_sass/pseuds/tinymarvels





	1. Chapter 1

When he dreams, he dreams of darkness- gets washed away by images of holy symbols, mottled black teeth, and eyes that glow like two red beacons in the night. The sights and sounds all swirl together into a thick fog that slides down his throat, expands into his lungs until he is suffocating in it. It's a knock on the door that disturbs his sleep, and Rafael shies away from the sound. There in a dusty corner of a closed down antiques shop in San Diego, the former priest has made his bed. It's dim inside, lit only by the thin slices of light that escape from the cracks in the blinds. Wedged between a dresser and a stack of empty cardboard boxes Rafael groans and gives an irritable wave of his hand, as if that would silence the noise. Instead, the knocking gets more insistent, until Rafael finally pries his eyes open.

“Alright already!” He shouts, peeling himself off the floor, tripping and setting off an avalanche of boxes. “Fucking Christ.”

The pounding on the door echoes the pounding in his head.

Rafael yanks open the door just enough to poke his head out.

“We're closed,” he tells the young boy standing there, “Forever.”

“Hold on,” the kid says, scrambling to keep Rafael from shutting the door in his face, “Please, Father Breahley told me this is where I could find-” big blue eyes glance around the sidewalk then he whispers, like some terrible secret, “an exorcist...?”

Rafael can't help it. He laughs in the boy's face.

“Father Breahley lied to you. Go home, kid.”

He slams the door and locks it, ignoring the muffled voice that follows him all the way into the back office.

*

Over an hour later, when Rafael drags himself outside for a coffee run, the kid is sitting on the front steps.

“Oh just kill me now,” he grumbles as the kid clumsily scrambles after him like a baby deer.

“You're him, right?” Bambi asks him, somewhere between eagerness and desperation, “You're Father Flores. I need your help; Father Breahley told me you were the only one that could do it.”

Rafael doesn't miss a beat, or slow down.

“I'm not with the church anymore; it's just Rafael.”

“But you can still do it, right? Get rid of a demon?”

“Breahley is old and senile. Whatever he's told you about me, forget it. I don't do that shit anymore.”

“You won't even try?”

“No,” Rafael says, “I won’t.”

He turns into the coffee shop at the end of the block and joins the line at the register. There's a coldness in his chest and an ache deep in his bones that he's hoping might be soothed by something warm. He orders a double shot and starts to rifle through his pockets, coming out with a crumpled dollar bill and a massive handful of change. The woman behind the counter looks distinctly unimpressed.

“I've got it.” Bambi says, handing her a five. Helpful. Innocent. Like he's totally got no ulterior motives. It's cheating, is what it is. Dick.

Rafael picks a table in the far corner and sinks into it, muscles screaming.

“You have five minutes,” he tells the kid, “Talk.”

*

The confessional is the same as he remembers it. Hard unforgiving wood, smelling distinctly of dust and incense. After the three-hour train ride from San Diego to LA Rafael’s ass hurts like hell.

“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.” he says, letting his head fall against the back wall, “It has been...I don't know, two years since my last confession.”

“Rafael,” Breahley answers, “I know it's you.”

“Oh, good. Saves us a lot of time, then.”

“You could have just texted, you know,” Breahley complains through the thin wood panel.

“I don't want you to have my new number.” Rafael says, “Obviously. You sent me another one, I told you last time to fuck off.”

“Who, Austin?”

“The Bambi-looking kid? Yeah.”

There's a sigh from the other side of the confessional, the kind that means Breahley's gearing up for a lecture.

“Raf, he needs you,” Yep, lecturing, the cliché kind. “You can't keep turning your back on this- you have a gift.”

Rafael's jaw clenches and he inhales a sharp breath through his nose. “I don't have _anything_. There's nothing left, okay? I'm empty.”

“So that’s it?" the priest says, disappointment evident in his voice, "You just give up and run away?”

“Why not?” The words scrape their way out from Rafael's throat like sandpaper; painful. “I gave up _everything_. Every piece of myself is broken up. Ruined. I just...I just want to rest. Don't I deserve that? Don't I deserve a life of my own? Where I'm not stabbed and burned and beaten bloody _all the fucking time?_ Vince...why can't you just let me _live?_”

“You call that living?” Vincent Breahley asks, “You're hiding. You stay in your shop all day and you hardly ever go outside. I _know _you. You’re just biding your time, waiting for an escape that isn’t coming.”

The silence is so heavy that Rafael aches with it, ribcage tightening into a vise around his heart.

“If I open myself up again,” he says softly, “I don't think I'll ever be able to get away from them.”

He feels like a windup toy. Forced to move forward until he’s completely drained- desperate for relief, for an end. But God winds him back up and makes him go again.

*

“Okay,” Rafael tells Bambi (Austin, apparently) taking a sip of his 7-Eleven Slurpee, “The most important thing to remember is that whatever is in there right now, it's not your mom anymore. It's going to try to lie to you, and it's going to pretend, but you can't believe it. Not until I'm finished.”

Austin looks about a step away from worrying himself into an early grave. “Did we have to tie her to a chair?” He asks, “I thought they only did that in movies.”

“She has legs,” Rafael replies, “You want to be the one chasing her down the street if she runs away?”

“No...” The boy is watching his mother, the way she writhes and tugs at the bonds. The teenager ages a decade right before Rafael's eyes, no life left in his face. It's not fair, not at all. Because despite the obvious differences; the blonde hair, blue eyes, and pale skin splattered with freckles, so much the opposite of his own dark features...Rafael still feels like he's looking in a mirror. Can see the same dark circles under the eyes, the same unkempt clothes and world-weary aura.

“Here,” Rafael says to shatter the illusion, handing him a fat drawstring bag stuffed full of tiny purple buds, “Dried lavender. Spread that in a line around the walls.”

With the kid busy, Rafael begins his preparation. He sadly abandons his slushie in favor of lighting the incense- burning in three points around the kitchen chair containing Austin's mother. The pressure he usually feels thrumming in his blood is absent, but it won't be much longer. For the last two years Rafael had gone to great pains to close himself off, seal up all the cracks and block out the voices and senses that had plagued him for so long. But now, he opens himself back up- a chasm splitting the Earth. A hole leading straight into his core. Everything rushes back in and it feels like he's drowning, swept up in the rising waters. The air is thick, and Rafael can feel the way it trembles in the room, the way it feels _wrong_. He knows the exact moment the creature inhabiting Austin's mother senses the change, because empty eyes lock onto him with single-minded hunger. A smile slices across her face like a dagger.

“I see you,” she says, voice harsh and raw, “Empty man. So afraid.”

“I'm not scared of you,” Rafael sighs, “Trust me, I've seen worse.”

The creature tilts its head. “Oh yes…so much worse. You're afraid of that, aren't you. Afraid of the thing you become when they crawl inside you.” It looks so pleased with itself but Rafael remains neutral. He expected this; they always enjoy running their mouths. The demon licks its lips. “You're worried you'll lose yourself to your work, but you know without it...you have nothing.” The demon laughs wildly and Rafael's ears feel like they're being drilled into. He takes a deep breath and starts to recite from memory.

...Song lyrics.

Austin stares. “What the _fuck_ is that!”

“Bohemian Rhapsody.”

“_Why!_”

Rafael looks at him like he's soft in the head, gesturing to the now screeching demon. “I'm performing an exorcism.”

“With _Queen_?”

Rafael rolls his eyes. “Listen, exorcisms aren't always what you see in the movies, kid. You don't have to speak Latin or quote scripture- it's not the words that matter, but the intent behind them.”

“Do you at least have holy water?”

“No. But I can throw my slushie in her face if that'll make you feel better.”

Austin looks torn between crying and punching him in the face. “Are you _even an exorcist?_”

“I told you, I'm retired. Now are you wearing that pouch of herbs gave you?”

Austin pulls a tiny leather pouch out from under his shirt- it dangles from a cord around his neck.

“Good,” Rafael tells him, “then shut up and stand back.” He kneels down to dig through his backpack, coming up with a bundle of rosemary bound together with twine. “This is a weak spirit, hardly more than a poltergeist. I've got all I need right here,” he holds up the rosemary. With the lighter from his pocket Rafael sets it to burn. Streams of pale smoke spiral upwards, leaving behind a sweet scent that blends into the smell of incense in the room.

Rafael inhales deeply, holds it in for just a moment, then blows outward. He feels just a tiny piece of himself slip away, lost forever in the billow of smoke he sends into the demon's face.

“_Mama, ooh_

_I don't wanna die,_

_I sometimes wish I'd never been born at all_.”

The screaming starts. It's always Rafael's least favorite part.

*

There's a party going on at some club across the street. The music is muffled, but Rafael can feel the bass rattling his bones. He knows he should get up. Knows he needs to either find a hotel for the night, or find a way back home. Instead he sits on a sidewalk bench, dimly lit by the streetlights, and stares at nothing.

It's so loud.

Not the music- but the inside of his head. The voices are back, battering against his skull from all sides. The exhaustion from the exorcism is too much, and Rafael can't seem to push them back. They pick at him, chip away until the hole inside him becomes bigger and bigger.

Austin's mom ended up being fine.

Rafael feels used up and raw.

He had left the reunited family behind and staggered through the city. Strangely, the closer he came to the bustling club the quieter the clamoring spirits became. Alone in the dark Rafael closes his eyes and feels the music thrum in time with the beat of his heart.


	2. just another dead guy in LA

Everything's in place- the incense, the salt lines, the tiny herb jars place in front of every door and window. Rafael takes up position and inhales a long steady breath. The energy in the house is heavy. It presses into him, inch by inch, knives sliding into his soul. Tied to the chair, the creature inhabiting his latest client's girlfriend gives him a splintered smile. It's strong, enough that the house trembles around them.

This will be the last time.

One more.

One more, and he'll finally let himself rest.

When he starts reciting the words the demon screams, kicking up a whirlwind of chaos. Furniture and decor fly against the walls and shatter into shards of wood and glass. In the middle of the storm, Rafael is an unmoving stone figure. The darkness floods around him, rising, swallowing him up.

Rafael's life runs by in a series of moments, flowing through one another seamlessly.

_He's young and naive and he doesn't understand the shadows that move at the edge of his vision, doesn't understand why the other kids keep their distance from him no matter how hard he tries to bridge the gap-_

_He's young and stupid and he's looking for a purpose in a world where his parents are afraid to have him stay in their house, too afraid to even call him on the phone, too afraid of the son they wish they never-_

_The church is big and beautiful and they tell him he has a gift, he has a destiny and it was chosen for him, hand-picked for him by God in-_

_He's helping, he is, and he has purpose, he has a reason to keep going and going and going-_

_The first time someone dies he throws up. He can't escape the image; even when he closes his eyes he sees her body, twisted and gnarled into a broken knot as she screams and screams: it's your fault it's your fault it's-_

_Every time he opens himself up he can feel the stains accumulating on his soul, until he's dirty and awful and so so tired, please, he's so tired-_

_They send him. Again and again, because the church doesn't care, doesn't give a fuck as long as he does as he's told, acts like a good little-_

_He's jabbed with a chair leg just under his ribcage._

_He's burned, a lick of fire leaving mass of raised scars along his chest._

_He's stabbed, twice, with the cross at the end of his own rosary._

_He's sliced by claws, three long tracks torn across his back._

_He's beaten and broken and scarred all over, and still they want more._

_He runs away, but he can't escape his "gift"._

_They always bring him back._

The demon's laughter goes quiet, a candle blown out, and in the resulting silence there is nothing but the sensation of warm blood trailing down from Rafael's lips. The last bit of himself is nearly gone, hanging by one final thread. His instinct is to cling to it, like a drowning man holding his breath, but Rafael is so tired of fighting the inevitable. He makes himself breathe- pulls the water into his lungs.

The thread snaps. 


End file.
